The secret of life is to be interested in one thing profoundly and in a thousand things well.

August 06, 2014

What a beautiful summer we've had here. Low to mid 80's all the time -- I bet I'm the only person in St. Louis who wishes it'd warm up!

Oh, all right. I guess it's been warm enough!

I gotta say, I love my pool.

There have been lots of knitting classes, too. We've re-worked the back room at the shop to include a dedicated class room. Yay, Knitorious! And, as the saying goes, "If you build it, they will come." Classes are many and full -- all the time. So fun!

Hubster and I have been trying out new restaurants. This goofy picture, which I love, is at a new local place, the Purple Martin. Good drinks, growing menu, local.

I wrote a fun pattern for the Summer's Last Blast St. Louis area yarn crawl. It's arch-themed... ; ) It's called Parabolic Hat on Ravelry. PM me if you want the coupon code to get it for free. You have to make it yourself, though.

I'm growing basil and mint and lots of other things in a new little garden plot. I use the herbs this way, mostly.

February 11, 2014

Whoa. Tough one. Even though I work in color all the time, I don't usually think in terms of color. I think I'll flip this one on its ear and give you ten favorite pictures with red in them. Thanks Carole!

1. Of course, since I live in St. Louis, one of my favorite red things might include the St. Louis Cardinals. I don't know if you were paying attention last year, but we had a pretty good season until the end there.

Here we are at a World Series game in St. Louis : my favorite priest, myself and Dear Daughter.

2. We had to win the NLCS to get to the world series, of course, and that was a little more fun!

Hubster and Dear Daughter and yours truly at the NLCS championship game. There are even hand knits.

3. See all the fun?

4. Loved knitting this E. L. F. hat -- inspired by the pattern, but not in fingering weight yarn. Nephew's lucky he got this one... I love it.

6. Knit friend Lauren's baby Elodie was born this fall. Knit friend Deborah finished her Dreambird KAL around the same time. I tried this pattern and it kicked my hiney -- **jealous** -- but this picture is a lovely one and it's got red in it... ; )

7. Dear friend Sr. Rosemary moved away from us this summer -- we had a party in the back yard to send her off in style. Rosemary and I were altos together in the church choir. She's moved on to teach high-school math elsewhere in Missouri. I miss her.

8. Knit alongs figure pretty large in my life right now -- I run them for two days a week and field questions about them the rest of the time... and I love doing them. One of my favorites so far has been the Rockefeller. 32 women and I knit this scarf together. My knitters ranged from beginner (Rockefeller was her first finished project) to this very experienced lady. Isn't she gorgeous?!

9. Our trip to Kiawah this summer finally resulted in my getting to go to Husk! Reservations at this award-winning restaurant had eluded me until this trip. I forget what I ate by now, but the dinner was lovely and I got to share it with family and visiting friends. Fr. John again... and Fr. Stephen who visited us in Kiawah, and Hubster, Daughter and Dear Brother-in-Law. So fun! Fr. Stephen and I are wearing red, see?

10. Not red, but orange, I guess, but my favorite selfie of the year. Here are Dear Daughter, myself, and Grandpa visiting Kennedy Space Center -- we took Granny and Grandpa to see Hubster's project there. What a grand trip it was, getting to share that marvelous venue with family.

November 08, 2011

Actually, I've willfully misinterpreted Carole's topic for today which is ten ways to deal with a cold. I refuse to mention colds as there is such nastiness swirling around here and I've taken such measures to avoid it that I've got disinfectant hand cream coming out of my pores.

Tonight I'll blog about how I deal with the cold, as in there is a huge cold front coming and it's going to get cold. That cold. I bet you can guess the nature of the contents of my post...

I may have blogged about the Christmas present Hubster got me last year -- 250 grams of Quiviut fiber. I also may have blogged about spinning it into a light fingering weight 2-ply yarn. I can't remember.

As the cold approached this fall, I thought I should finish the gloves I started out of this hand spun goodness last spring. It didn't take long. These suckers are soft and warm and decadent. And they only weight 80 grams. As such, my pair is in the works.

I used Ann Budd's Handy Book of Patterns. These gloves were knit on size 2 needles and I knit the man's large size. Hubster likes them.

Also in the WIP finishing category is my Inspira cowl (that's a Ravelry link).

General Patton modeling knit wear again. I know that the photo seems yellow, but the colors of the cowl read pretty true in this photo. The yarn is a hand spun Spunky Eclectic colorway -- can't remember which one, but I spun it to maintain the long color repeats.

I modified the pattern in that I decreased to give it some shoulder shaping. I knit it on size 9 needles.

It's rustic and thick and bright. I kind of love it.

So, yeah, knitting is one way to deal with cold weather. The other way?

You knew that was coming.

I'll tell you one thing. The way my CSA deals with the cold weather is to throw winter squash at us! I have 2 Acorn, one Butternut, one Delicata, and a baking pumpkin.

Tonight I stuffed two kinds of winter squash with cornbread stuffing, because, to be perfectly honest, my family does not love winter squash. It's ok as a vehicle for something else like stuffing, though.

Cornbread Stuffed Winter Squash

2 winter squash, halved and seeded

1 small onion, diced

2 ribs celery, diced

2 large cloves garlic

salt and pepper to taste

1 T butter

10 leaves fresh sage, chopped

2 T Sherry

6 stale corn muffins, about 2 cups (you can use bread cubes that you dry a little in the oven instead)

1 1/2 c chicken stock

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Sautee onion, celery, and garlic in butter until soft. Season with salt and pepper and add sherry. Reduce slightly. Add sage.

November 05, 2011

It's not chicken soup with rice, although I love that too. No, my family's favorite soup is Chicken Soup with Dumplings.

I started with my mother's recipe long ago and over the years have changed it up a little bit as I've acquired kitchen savy.

We had chicken more and more often the older I got. My mom told me once that when she was young, they didn't often have the chicken breast but the "lesser" parts -- thigh, drumstick, etc. I think -- but as chicken became more of a staple in America, and the white meat more available, we had chicken breast a lot at my house. My mom would put lemon pepper and butter on them and bake them in their skins. They were good.

Fast forward to now and I have to say, I'm not a fan of the chicken breast. Dry and mealy unless treated very carefully. I'm not usually one to baste my chicken in butter as mom did (too calorie conscious) so baked chicken breasts are just out for me. I usually poach those boneless skinless ones and use 'em in something else. Now, thighs? I can get behind some boneless thighs -- grilled, stewed. It's come full circle.

Enter my CSA and their free range whole birds. I can taste the difference between these birds and grocery store chicken breasts and I love free range bird. I buy extra when they have them and they are absolutely worth the money. Here's one of the things I do with a whole chicken. Perfect for colder temps.

Mom's (Almost) Chicken Soup with Dumplings

1 medium roasting chicken

1T seasoned salt (I use Lawry's)

celery tops

1t Penzey's Shallot Salt

1 bay leaf

1t garlic powder

1/2 t white pepper

1 1/2 c diced celery

1 1/2 c carrot coins (I rough chop peeled baby carrots but any carrots are fine. If you peel them, wash 'em first and put the peels in the stock.)

A Note about the pan: I have a pan like this pan, technically a Dutch oven I think, and I use it for the whole dish. You need something shallow enough to roast in, wide enough to accommodate lots of dumplings and deep enough to accommodate soup. Or you need multiple pans...

A Note about the dumplings, which are not the usual kind but drop biscuits. Faster and easier than rolled dumplings, which my family finds gummy. Just warning you.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Pat the seasoned salt all over the outside of the bird and in it's cavity. If possible use the pan you'll make the soup in to bake the bird until just done -- 165 in the thigh or until the drumstick wiggles pretty good. Pull it out and let it cool enough to handle it and take most of the meat off the carcass and put it and all the skin and leavings back in your pan on the stove top. Refrigerate the meat to use later in the dish.

If you have time, put the carcass back in the oven for 15 or twenty minutes at 400 and get it nice and brown. This step is worth your extra time. Browned carcass and skin makes superior stock. Just sayin'. If you don't have time to add this step, just go ahead -- it'll still be really good.

Pour 6 or so cups of water into the roasting pan over the carcass and scrape up the bits from the bottom of the pan.

Chop the top 3 inches (the leafy part) off of your celery bunch and toss it in the broth. Add the shallot salt, bay leaf, garlic powder and white pepper to the stock and boil for 15 or 20 minutes while you dice the celery and chop the carrots. Longer if you want, just watch the water level. You can't do this part too long -- yummy stock just gets better. Sometimes, if I'm feeling gourmet, I'll add a glug of sherry at this point. Sherry and poultry are a match made in heaven. And please use drinking sherry, not cooking sherry. Please?!

Strain the stock through a fine sieve or through several layers of cheese cloth and return it to the pot. Throw away the carcass and bones and skin now.

Add to the stock the carrots and celery and diced chicken you pulled from the carcass. Check the stock for saltiness and adjust to taste. You may want to add water at this point so you'll have enough for soup -- eyeball it. Bring soup to a bare boil -- more than a simmer but not rolling.

Mix Bisquick and milk. I use a small scoop to drop the dumplings one by one into the boiling soup. Salt and pepper the tops of the dumplings and let them cook in the soup for 10 minutes covered and 5 minutes uncovered.

The only complaint I get about this soup is that it's too hot to eat when I serve it. Which I do right when the dumplings are cooked through. They thicken the stock a little and a burned roof of the mouth is worth it I think.

I used to make only a single recipe of dumplings but now I do a recipe and a half since everyone goes back for extra dumplings. They're pretty good the second day too, if they last that long.

This recipe is actually a pretty quick dinner, with a little planning. I usually bake the chicken after carpool, around 4 p.m., and I can even run an errand or two while it's in the oven. My biggest problem is remembering to thaw the bird! The 45 minutes at the stove at the end are no more than I spend making any other dinner.

Can you use canned stock and cooked chicken? Sure. Still good. Will the soup be better if you make your own stock from a bird you roast yourself? Um. Yes. Yes. Yes.

September 15, 2011

First off, this (it's a Yahoo News link). Here's what I think (and this is totally not a viable solution, I know, I'm just hoppin' mad). Everyone should get to opt out paying for of so-called safety-net programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, WIC, Food Stamps, etc if he or she wants to. If someone doesn't want to participate in society, it's obviously his or her choice. Two conditions, though. It should be a public choice -- you don't want to pay for this stuff, don't just cheer anonymously in a rabid crowd, put your name down so I can see it. Second, you opt out of the benefits as do your dependents. Period. If that's what you believe it means to support each other in society, fine, you're un-subscribed. Hope nothing bad or out of your control ever happens to you. I mean that with all my heart too, because I'm just that kind of gal.

Speaking of bad or out of control, a family we know has had a difficult time lately with a severe injury happening to an adult child who lives across the country. Luckily, he has insurance and he'll be ok. Meantime, his mom has flown there to be with him and his dad and younger siblings are here. Through church, we're making meals for the family this week. Monday, I cooked for much of the day and caught up on Boardwalk Empire. Add Steve Buscemi to the list of people I'll watch do anything (it's a short list... Colin Firth, Anna Paquin, Rufus Sewell). Weird, I know. I made lasagna, Mulligan Stew, and these cookies. Peanut butter, chocolate chip, butterscotch chip. They are awesome, but they'd be better if I'd sprinkled them with sea salt and turbinado sugar before baking them... a little sweet/salty crunch on the top would have put them into the "sublime" category.

Knitting the Fibonaci striped sweater has stalled. I'm going to run out of yarn and it's 8 years old and discontinued and the place I bought it originally doesn't have it any more and no one who has it in their stash on Ravelry will talk to me. Pooh. I've found a sub and may order it. Pooh again.

Since Fibonaci is stalled, I started something else. Vitamin D in my hand-spun. I'm Ambivalent so far. I love the way it's knitting up, but it's a little uneven. Gauge issues I think. Soon, I'll wet it and see if I like the results. The yarn is this: I plied Spunky Eclectic's club colorways Night Owl and Changes together. The resulting yarn is a squooshy dk weight 2 ply. We'll see if it's the right yarn for this sweater. Time and knitting will tell.

Now, The Game of Thrones is the black hole of my time. Bridgett thinks it's dark. There must be something wrong with me that I don't really... I'm hard wired to enjoy the medieval I think. I can look past the filth and throat slitting and just enjoy the rawness. The social network in this kingdom? Someone else's dagger... And I love Peter Dinklage -- he's a kind of out-of-the-ordinary but very appealing choice for this role. Lots of knitting and watching.

And finally, I made this little craft project for our bedroom out of some toile I found and fell in love with.

August 29, 2011

Have I mentioned how much I'm enjoying cooking again? Tonight was supposed to be roasted chicken with succotash, but the roasting didn't happen soon enough. Plan B wasn't a horrible thing.

Three cheese pesto bread - toasted. Make your own fresh pesto. Today I used the fresh-ish basil I got in my share last week and green-bottle parmesan (cheater -- wanted the fresh grated for the three cheese bread). Two large cloves garlic, roasted salted almonds (I know I've got pine nuts in my freezer somewhere but I couldn't find them for the life of me), olive oil and safflower oil (ran out of olive oil -- that is a bad thing and will necessitate a run to the grocery tomorrow), lots of fresh ground pepper and some quality time in the blender.

Spread this on your Dear Son's favorite crusty bread and top with Parmesan, Methuselah (a local hard cheese), and mozzarella cheese. Salt to taste and grind on lots of black pepper. Toast for 4 minutes, using the handy dandy toasting setting on your cheapy stove that the kitchen designer told you not to buy but that you use every friggin' day of your life, and voila! Yum.

Pair this killer bread with beef and veg shish kebobs and the piece de resistance.

A salad inspired by one I had at Scape on our anniversary. Theirs was grated fresh zucchini and almonds with a light dressing and it was very good. I'd never thought of eating zucchini uncooked, but it's really good this way and soaks up dressing -- probably whatever dressing you decide to throw at it. Good to know.

I decided that, since I'm not eating bread, that I'd like at least some share of the fresh pesto, so I built the salad from there using the pea shoots instead of peas, which are a traditional Italian pairing with pesto in pasta. The flavors should fit, I thought.

That's it. Toss it and stick your face in. Share it only if your husband makes you. It'll probably be better tomorrow. I've hidden the leftovers in the back of the fridge behind the tofu. He'll never find it there.

(If I'm going to become a food blogger, I'm going to need to get white plates. Getting the color right on green ones is not possible.)

This color, though, I did get right. Even though I took the picture in the bathroom after dark (not on the north or west side of the house before 11:00 a.m. like I'm supposed to... bad blogger planning). It's the latest thing off my wheel -- 730 yards of dk weight Mr. Fuchsia, the August Dyeabolical club yarn. Silk, bamboo, and merino if I'm not mistaken. A beautiful spin. And very pink.

August 28, 2011

I've written here before about my CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) group, Fair Shares. Now that I'm back on my feet, I'm trying desperately to cook all of the food they send each week. It's really a lot to fit in.

Ok, the chips and salsa go fast. I'll be up front about that. But the Fairy Tale Egglplant? I really have to sneak that stuff into things or the family just won't eat it.

Also, yesterday, Hubster and I rode bikes to the local farmer's market. He found the sausage guy. We came home with The Farmer's Larder Kielbasa.

So for dinner tonight, I decided to use up as much of this stuff as possible as we'll be receiving an even longer list of stuff next week, I'm sure.

I also adhere to the adage that foods that are in season together taste good together so I combined a lot of this stuff into two side dishes. (Is that an adage? Maybe I heard it on Top Chef or something. Anyhoo.)

The first was a kind of vegetable goulash or maybe ratatouille... I don't know what I'd call it.

I sauteed leftover sausage with some olive oil. Then I added tomatoes that I'd halved and grilled along with eggplant that I'd salted (not long enough though -- it was still a little bitter), tossed with salt, pepper, and olive oil, then grilled. Both were skinned and chopped up. A couple of glugs of white whine (Sauvignon Blanc) and some Japanese spinach (from last week's share) and some parsley. Yum. I mean really good. Like there is no picture because I though I'd have leftovers to photograph and I didn't good.

The second dish was black beans and leftover rice with grilled onions, red peppers and tomatillos (also last week's share). A generous dash of hot sauce and a cup or so of white wine and the dish was finished.

Seriously? Yum.

Tomorrow? Roasted chicken (last week's share) and a corn and lima bean succotash using up the leftover Keilbasa. I don't know if I'll have enough for the rest of you... sorry.

January 15, 2011

I've blogged about this stuff a lot. Seems I have a lot to say on the matter. Surprise.

First things first though. Things like this green egg among the brown ones give me a little lift. I know that there is a kind of hen that lays green eggs, but I can't remember which kind -- Mindy probably knows. Anyway, I made these whole grain pancakes for myself this morning. I get the mix and the eggs from you know where and the mix is way too healthy for the rest of my family. Too many oats and wheat berry chunks. They'll only eat it if I mix it with Busquick and even then, they notice.

Fine. More for me. I didn't use the green egg though. I saved it.

If I was a better blogger, you'd have a picture of a stack of slightly raggedy pancakes (this stuff does not make round pancakes) with a little bit of I can't believe this is not butter melting down the sides (I'm out of butter) and some Marble Creek Sugar Leaf Maple Syrup pooling on the plate. (More CSA stuff, this syrup, and it's worth every penny. It takes about 50 gallons of tree sap to make a gallon of this syrup. Stuff of the gods.) As it was, once the syrup was on the pancakes, all bets were off. ; )

Back to the food discussion. Memberships to the CSA to which we both belong (Community Supported Agriculture thingy) are about up for renewal. We both decided that we'd do it again this year. We both know people who've quit for various reasons: too much food (I get that); wanting to cook with different things and feeling pinned down to the seasonal fare (not so much.) Not judging, just disagreeing.

I love the fact that I come home with this random assortment of things and I love the challenge of fixing meals from the assortment. I'm looking forward to the spring greens season and asparagus season and tomato season. I don't much buy that stuff out of season here so I develop a hankering for it. It's kind of fun to wait for fresh tomatoes, for instance, and then to have the first one of the season and then to have way too many and have to freeze them.

I'm not really a recipe gal. I put things together and most of the time things work. I have a good cooking foundation (my mom and food network and lots and lots of cook books) and I've got adventurous eaters (for the most part) to feed. I've also got big eaters. A whole roast chicken lasts for one meal at my house unless you count using the carcass for stock. I keep a deep pantry too. Lot's of ingredients grouped in flavor or cuisine families -- italian, mexican, bistro style, comfort food from the 70's(although none of the ingredients for a tuna casserole come from the CSA... wait, potato chips and cheddar cheese...) -- you know. A kind of food.

Like, you can make a risotto with anything as long as you have stock and rice. Ditto a sauce for pasta. Any vegetable can be roasted as a side dish for grilled meat. Or sauteed with wine and bacon. Seriously. Carrots, onions, wine and bacon? Yep. Lick-the-plate yummy.

So the CSA appeals to me on a culinary level, but it also appeals to me on a justice level. On a planetary one. Less packaging, less travel, support local businesses. The CSA food is local (for the most part -- the coffee is roasted locally ...) and fresh. I like the discipline of using these things that are abundant right now. Turnips don't generally appeal to me or my family, but roasted and gravied up? They'll eat them. And ask what they are. We talked about the potato famine at dinner the other night as a result of eating turnips. Tatties and neeps... know what that is? Ok, not Irish, but Scottish ... British Isles anyway.

Bridgett and I also discussed the fact that we still shop at the local grocery store, but at about $50 a week, the CSA probably saves us money. I have to buy meat, because while the CSA has roasts and the like, they aren't usually big enough for our family. Bridgett had a deer to contend with each year so she doesn't buy as much of that kind of thing as I do. We both buy booze and junk food too. I probably buy more of that kind of thing than she does. She doesn't have teenagers yet. We both have milk delivered by a local(ish) dairy.

Another fairly regular (probably quarterly) source of food for my family is Time for Dinner. I go every few months with Amanda (of the comments) and some friends and while we fixed 12 dinners for the freezer, we discussed our CSAs. If you haven't done this kind of thing before, for about $200, you go in and they have all of the fresh ingredients for perhaps 18 different dishes. You choose what you want to make and then you make it and package it for freezing. They've chopped all the peppers and onions, they've skinned all the chicken. They've done the mise en place, basically. They clean it all up too (that being the best part of all).

I left with 12 six-serving dinners, many of which I split into 2 3-person servings -- perfect for when Hubster's traveling. My downstairs freezer is full, full, full. The kids ate several of their pizza calzones last night. Easy, peasy. And I made them -- no preservatives or packaging outside of the zipper bag I brought them home in...

Tonight? Time for Dinner vegetable lasagna with CSA roast chicken. Both are thawing in the fridge right now. Then we're off to see The King's Speech. Sound like the perfect Saturday? It does to me.

(Oh, and my Hubster and progeny will cart all those boxes up to the storage closet upstairs and I'll have my house back.)

(And another thing -- Hubster's doing some yard work outside wearing his sweater. That makes my heart sing. Life is good.)

- 3 handsome 13 year olds who aren't willing to dress up any more, but who followed the trick or treaters none the less, helping (a little) with the babies and jumping out of leaf piles to scare the people on the hay ride wagons. One of them did use a fake hand to his advantage -- he trick or treated with a mild joke, then dropped the hand into the treat bowl, scaring many of our neighbors (Dear Son was very amused.) They had 13-year-old-boy fun, I guess. And ate a substantial amount of candy. We told them that next year, they should make a haunted forest out of our side yard and scare people there...

- 6 large bags of Halloween candy (about 1000 pieces), 1 bag left.

We heard several good jokes this year.

Where is Beethoven now? He's decomposing.

Did you hear about the new constipation movie? It's not out yet.

A little boy: Why don't vampires drink root beer? It makes them burp. Followed directly by his sister with Why do vampires drink blood? Because root beer makes them burp. She probably goes around righting his universe all the time.

October 23, 2010

I saw some yarn spun up on a Ravelry group while I was surfing around late one night several weeks ago. It was a merino tencel blend and it was shiny gun-metal gray shot through with primary colors. I mooned to Rachel over the yarn and then moaned about not being able to even find the link again to show her. I wanted the mystery roving desperately. I may have stomped my foot. Twice. Do you know what that girl did? She ordered 10 pounds of merino tencel and when it came in, she invited me over to help her dye me the roving I had in my head. This is it, exactly. My angel. I can hardly wait to spin it!

Here's the problem: no time to spin today. These shots are from last weekend, but I suppose that the game today will look much the same. While cleaning upstairs this week, I found pictures of these boys playing a soccer game when they were kindergarteners. Then it was just a scrum around a ball as tall as their knees, but now, as an eighth grade team, they are a force with which to be reckoned. So fun to watch and the weather is perfect for a Saturday morning soccer game. It's just hard to take your spinning wheel to a soccer game...

This evening, Emelie, our French exchange student, arrives in St. Louis. We're having a Mizzou football chili fest tonight in her honor. I don't know if she likes football, but she'll have to eat dinner, right? I'll make Cincinnati style chili and serve it over hot dogs or spaghetti noodles with cheddar cheese and sour cream. Also, my boys can't watch football without summer sausage and crackers. And my girl and I can't watch football without nacho chips and Rotel/Velveeta cheese dip. The game is a big one for Mizzou fans (of which husband and son and son's friend are several) so Emelie will get a taste of American football fans...

In order to have this child in my house for several weeks, I have to clean out the upstairs sitting room and daughter's closet. I've gotten a start on these, but there is lots more to do. Today. Between soccer and groceries. Hubster is helping as is Daughter. Between the three of us, we should have the place ready by tonight. But that leaves no time for spinning either...